Universidad de Guadalajara

Maestra en Enseanza del Ingls como Lengua Extranjera

Module II: Linguistic Description For Foreign Language
Teaching

Reflection 2 Sounds of
Language

Tutors Name: Dra. Mara Luisa Arias Moreno

Name: Humberto Marino Ramrez

E-mail: humber_marino@hotmail.com

February 17th, 2014

Reflection 2

What relevance does any of this have for my teaching?

As you answer the question, be sure to provide examples for at least FIVE of the areas that you
read about. Explain how you would apply these to your own teaching for the benefit of the
learners. This reflection must be submitted, along with the first one.

I.- Vowels

I think that phonetics is an important tool for the English teacher and also for the English
students. The learner should aim to have at his disposal the 20 vowel phonemes of either
RP (british pronunciation) or GA (General American).

Many learners of English have difficulty with the short vowel series exemplified by: pit, pet,
pat, putt, pot, put. The series should be first presented to them, either in words having a
similar consonantal frame or, preferably in isolation. After listening, the learner can be
asked to identify the items presented in a number of randomly-ordered sets. (It is helpful if
at this stage learners are able to relate an English sound to a phonetic symbol or to a
number). In the next stage learners listen to examples of the same vowels (which by now
they can identify correctly), but this time vowels of their own language are interspersed
with the English ones; they must identify what is English and what is not.

Use can be made of sounds which learners have in their own language and they can be
told to try to make sound x more like sound y, or try to superimpose x on y, or try to
make x and y at the same time.

II.- Consonants

The full inventory of 24 constant phonemes must eventually be available to the speaker,
although those consonants with low frequency or few minimal pairs should be given a low
priority e.g.

Discrimination exercises can be used in teaching the perception of difficult features of the
English consonantal system. For instance, in the case of the importance of aspiration in
distinguishing initial /p,t,k/ from /b,d,g/, it will be appropriate to present the English series
for recognition(after describing the aspiration feature), and then to mix these with
examples of strong but unaspirated (p,t,k) sounds to be identified as non-English by the
student.

III.- Accent and Rhythm of Phrases

Accenting the correct syllable of words should be a high priority for learners of RP or
General American. If the wrong syllable of a word is accented, an alternative with that
accentuation and with a similar sequence of sounds may be understood e.g. there are two
suburbs in London one called Kennington /kntn/ and one called Canning Town /kn
tawn/ but if either is pronounced with the others accent pattern, it is liable to be
misunderstood by Londoners.

IV.- Accentuation of Single words

The auditory approach (perception before production) used in teaching segmental

phonemes can also be employed in the case of accentual features. Learners must be
taught to appreciate variation in the accentual patterns of English polysyllabic words and
the reduction of weak syllables in the utterance.

In the polysyllabic words, correct pattern identification(preferably by using such nonsense

sequences as (lili,lili) )should precede drills involving differing patterns in English words
e.g. behind vs under, evidence vs important vs magazine. The importance of the
accentual pattern of a word for its identification should be stressed, a correct accentual
pattern being at least as important as the correct sequence of sounds.

Exercises should be used for identifying weak forms in connected speech and particularly
at the beginnings of sentences before students attempt the same sequence themselves.
So too should exercises in listening and practicing the Borrowing rule in pairs like
bus/buses, conduct/conductor, gone/gone to, around/around the

V.- Intonation

Intonational phrasing is similar across most languages, such phrases often corresponding
with syntactic clauses. However sentence adverbials like incidentally and officially and
syntactic subjects are frequently given phrases of their own in English, particularly in
longer sentences. Learner will often neglect to divide long sentences into intonational
phrases because the pressure to think of other aspects of the language makes them
intone sentences in a wooden way. Chunking a sentence into phrases will make
pronunciation better.

In this text I have analyzed the importance of a learner identifying the vowels of the
English language, relating them with some phonetic symbols and being able to
discriminate sounds of his own language against the target language. Discriminating
exercises can also be used with aspiration consonants vs non-aspiration consonants. To
help my students grasp rhythm I can set up exercises of pattern identification so that
students can get used to the accentuation of words in English and finally reducing long
sentences into chunks can help intonation skills improve.
Bibliografa
Cruttenden, A. (2008). Gimson's Pronunciation of English. London: Hodder Education.